Going back to the Shibs for a moment, today's FD was beautiful- a real work of art in the making. But all the beautifully constructed programs in the world won't help if they aren't healthy. I hope Alex can heal or get better as the case may be. Tough break for them today.

Going back to the Shibs for a moment, today's FD was beautiful- a real work of art in the making. But all the beautifully constructed programs in the world won't help if they aren't healthy. I hope Alex can heal or get better as the case may be. Tough break for them today.

V/M -- Levels are OK , but the +GOE seems quite low from them. I'm used to seeing more +2 and +3.
I/K + Z/G had the same BV as V/M, but obviously they did not score as well in +GOE or PCS.
S/Z - Lower levels, but solid +GOE.
Shibs -- They had the lowest BV out of everyone. Levels were low (half the elements were level 2, one level three and level 3, but OK +GOE. They really liked the spin (I did too) -- one judge gave it a +3 despite it being level 2 and they got +1 and +2 from the rest. Surprised they didn't get a deduction for stopping...
M/K --- got a deduction for a costume failure?!

Going back to the Shibs for a moment, today's FD was beautiful- a real work of art in the making. But all the beautifully constructed programs in the world won't help if they aren't healthy. I hope Alex can heal or get better as the case may be. Tough break for them today.

Problem is they dig such a deep hole for themselves with the awful SD. Finishing 4th at a grand prix event is really bad for their reputation. I really do not see them making the World team this year. The U.S team that was at Skate Canada and Chock and Bates have better material in my opinion.

Looking at the two young Russian teams today, I have a slight preference for S/Z. I think they are one of the first Russian teams that I've seen for a long time that I feel they are technically very capable skaters with natural balance and stability over their blades.

With I/K (even though they're faster this year) and B/S (even thought they're greatly improved), their intrinsic skating ability always has me on edge waiting for a wobble or mis-step. S/Z naturally are more able as they move over the ice. They just need to improve their posture and the synergy between the two of them. Victoria is beautiful- the gorgeous cat eyes on her. She comes across as dynamic and confident without too much overt arrogance.

Kudos for trying to stand out by doing a dance that's very different from what others are doing--but I think "Ghost" is a mess. Step sequences on top of dialogue do not work. That t-shirt/dress combo does nothing for the lovely Elena (and as we saw from their Schindler's List FD, she can be stunning in simple costuming). I can get through the dance if I block out the music and focus only on Nikita (for he seems strong in this FD), but that's no way to watch a dance. . . .

Going back to the Shibs for a moment, today's FD was beautiful- a real work of art in the making. But all the beautifully constructed programs in the world won't help if they aren't healthy. I hope Alex can heal or get better as the case may be. Tough break for them today.

+1 I agree it's looks like a great FD in the making and it's unfortunate that we did not see it at full-strength today. I hope we find out what happened with Alex....he seems to have dealt with so much in the last year. :(

Yes, it's not good that the Shibs finished 4th here. But I think the season is still salvageable- it will be a scramble and they'll have to pull deep emotionally and mentally to make a shift again. Which is unfortunate since after the year they had last year I think they were hoping for good stable programs early on that they could gain mileage on for the rest of the season.

However, if they got rid of the SD, perhaps go back to Mary Poppins idea, and then have Alex rest up and then just practice between now and Nationals I think they will still be fine. US has 3 teams again right? If so, I think they can still make a spot.

I don't think we'll see any changes between now and NHK though- one of Alex's tweets seemed to indicate that they would just be traveling abroad from Rostelecom Cup and NHK (it probably didn't make sense to go all the way home again).

Hopefully they'll have a chance to rest between now and NHK and not worry about the programs in this short time period.